Britain’s pharma policy is a gift to Ireland

Share this article

Here’s a fun fact for you: Ireland, a country of just over 5 million people, is one of the top five largest exporters of pharmaceuticals on the planet. Ireland’s exports are estimated around 100 billion euros, with 19 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies having a significant footprint employing roughly 50,000 people. This has translated into the industry paying a large share of the country’s corporation tax, which in 2024 hit a record high. This has led to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council to have the lucky problem to fret about too much money and resources being concentrated in a handful of industries.

Now look at Britain: With nearly 70 million people and four of the top 10 universities globally, 1% of our entire population produces 6% of the world’s scientific output. However, we only just make the top 10 in global exporters of pharmaceuticals and barely hit a third of pharmaceutical exports that Ireland produces. And yet, the majority of those drugs being exported from the Irish sea were discovered in labs here in the UK. It seems that when the discoveries bear fruit and become medicinal products, the large value adds (manufacturing, job creation and taxes) are all exported alongside the drugs across to the Republic. This is not a one off for a specific company or drug, it has become de rigueur across the pharmaceutical industry. And we only have ourselves to blame.

I have spent the past 15 years working in the industry, and currently work in drug development in a large pharmaceutical company. I have had first-hand experience spanning drug discovery, regulatory approval and commercial forecasting. I can tell you, without a doubt, that the reasons for this are not due to chances of fate or mystery, but are directly linked to our policies.

Let’s start with the most obvious driver, Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate. A stalwart policy for nearly 20 years, though it did eke up to 15% due to the OECD agreements. This has been the main attractant for capital investments, and works perfectly for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Though lowering our corporate tax would be ideal, let’s be honest, we in Britain wouldn’t be able to compete with a nimble economy who has organised its entire policy around this type of industrial infrastructure. So, if we can’t compete with lowering taxes to be competitive, then what can we do in Britain to retain the capital investment we see lost to the Emerald Isle?

Well, Ireland didn’t become a pharmaceutical powerhouse overnight. An ecosystem was constructed with skilled workers at the base, an exemplary regulatory body that works well with Irish companies and their biggest trading partners (the FDA and EMA) and high-level strategy that focused on retaining these large companies as an economic priority rather than a nice to have. These were the building blocks that created such a robust market, and these are the exact aspects we can compete with Ireland on.

SMEs and skilled workers are the foundation of our economy. The life sciences industry employs roughly 360,000 people and turned over £147 billion in 2025-26. This is a keystone to our economy and we are not supporting it as well as we should be. Participation in commercial clinical trials in the UK is at its lowest since 2017. Only 27% of trials open to recruitment within 60 days of approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The target, by the way, is 95%. If we cannot promise a quick set up and approval of clinical studies, pharmaceutical companies will look elsewhere and with them goes the expertise, the relationships and eventually the manufacturing infrastructure. I myself have experienced approvals from several western nations well before MHRA approval. As a response, we reduced the number of participating sites in Britain and thus our reliance on British clinical expertise.

One big self-own we can address immediately is the pricing of medicines. The Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) sends a very clear signal to the pharma industry not to invest. And why would you invest in a country whose current rates are running between 23.5% and 35.6% of NHS branded medicine revenue, against roughly 5.7% in France, 7% in Germany, and 9% in Ireland? British companies have even said (out loud I may add) that the current environment discouraged further investment on British soil. Just look at the likes of AstraZeneca, which went off to greener pastures instead.

Do not read this diatribe as an argument to push for public investment into the pharma industry. This is a call to change the policy and regulatory environment, to make it more attractive for the industry to have an end-to-end market based in British soil. My proposal would be to firstly make the MHRA an attractive regulatory body that proves itself as the fastest route to market and support set-up to recruitment for innovative medicines and devices globally. If we have an agile, dynamic regulator that pushes to be faster than the rest, founders and novel Biotechs would flock to Britain to get their wares approved. This is a gift from Brexit we never fully embraced. We control the speed at which we approve or reject drugs and devices, and we can become the first port of call for innovation. Secondly, clinical trials are strategic infrastructure. When you invest in bringing patients into your studies, everything else downstream fits into place. Even raising that 60-day post recruitment figure from the disastrous 27% to something manageable like 50% would be a serious signal. Lastly, we need to sort out our medicine pricing strategy so that investing is predictable and not entirely dependent on the ever-changing rebate rate. Provide stability, get stable investment.

These three approaches wouldn’t require us to completely upend our tax structure (though I wouldn’t be against it), it would get our proverbial ducks in a row to make us a better investment opportunity. We can already claim to be one of the global academic powerhouses, this would turn us into a sophisticated pharmaceutical engine taking discovery to drug all in one place, that any pharma company would be foolish to not invest in. The lucky thing is that we do not have to wait for anyone but ourselves to make this change. We have no European regulators breathing down our necks, or US demands making us relinquish control. We have the base, we have the autonomy, we just need to stop giving the market away.

Share this article